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Lasemi recalls when she first moved to the banks of the Pluit reservoir in North Jakarta six years ago.

“In those days, I couldn’t eat anything,” the 41-year-old said, recalling the stench coming from tons of solid waste choking the reservoir’s gate, which lies about a meter from the backdoor of the one-room shanty that is home to her and her husband, a bajaj (auto-rickshaw) driver, and their four children. “When I first moved in here, the piles of solid waste were higher than my house.”

Lasemi, who came to Jakarta from Central Java in 1995, is one of about 20,000 squatters who live suspended over a portion of the reservoir. For the Rp 2 million ($200) the couple pay a year in rent, they get a close-up view of the reservoir gate and the layers of garbage that clog it.

“We’re all used to floods,” she said.

The city government would like to move Lasemi and other squatters away from rivers and reservoirs as part of a World Bank-funded dredging program to ease flooding. The bank, however, does not allow forced relocation of squatters because such moves are considered to be impractical and inhumane. But building new homes for the estimated 150,000 people who live near waterways illegally is costly and difficult, city officials say.

For now, people like Juliawati, 36, who lives in the Pantai Indah Kapuk area of North Jakarta, have no intention of moving. A native Betawi, she has lived along the Muara Kali Adem River since 1990 with her unemployed husband and family. They eke out a living and say it’s the best they can find.

The city government has raided the area several times, but the community of about 600 people keeps coming back. “Everything is free here. We don’t have to pay rent, and we’ve got a water supply,” Juliawati said. “This is far better than roaming the city streets.”
But living free comes at a price. Floods are a reality of life. The squatters survive by building their shacks as high as they can with scavenged planks.

Juliawati and Lasemi likely do not grasp that they are partially to blame for the flooding that plagues their lives. Illegal settlements near waterways jam rivers with garbage that leads to sedimentation, ultimately blocking the rivers’ flow.

The Jakarta Emergency Dredging Initiative, partially funded by a $150 million loan from the World Bank, mandates that the city resettle the squatters. The bank does not want to see people suffer injustice as a result of river dredging.

“If you affect people, you have to relocate them — this project should not make them worse off,” said Ida Ayu Dharmapatni, a senior operations officer at the World Bank who is involved in the relocation program. She and her team are hoping to reach an agreement on resettlement with city officials by September.

“Technically, if we have to enforce the law, we can wipe out those squatters in a day,” said Heru Utara, head of public facilities for the North Jakarta district. “But this problem is far more complex than that.”

Opting for the humane approach, Heru said the city administration needed massive funding to provide low-cost housing for the Pluit reservoir squatters. “It’s not ‘mission impossible,’ but where do we get the money from?” he asked.

Heru cited a successful relocation program under former Governor Sutiyoso’s administration in 2003, in which thousands of squatters were moved from the banks of the Angke River to apartments in Cengkareng.

“To be able to do that again, we need good locations and a huge amount of funds,” he said.

In Jakarta, however, building low-cost apartments near the Pluit reservoir would be very expensive. Building housing too far afield would be pointless because the squatters work near their homes and would balk at leaving their neighborhoods.

Despite the potential hardships, many squatters still yearn for a fair and dignified solution.

“We never dreamed of having this kind of life, and we will surely move out if the government can provide housing for us,” Juliawati said.